1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a touch panel and a method for manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art With the development of computers using a digital technology, devices assisting computers have also been developed, and personal computers, portable transmitters and other personal information processors execute text and graphic processing using a variety of input devices such as a keyboard and a mouse.
While the rapid advancement of an information-oriented society has been widening the use of computers more and more, products may not be effectively operated by using only the keyboard and mouse that are currently responsible for the input device function. Therefore, the need for a device that is simple, has minimum malfunction, and is capable of easily inputting information has increased.
In addition, current techniques for input devices have progressed toward techniques related to high reliability, durability, innovation, designing and processing beyond the level of satisfying general functions. To attain these objects, a touch panel has been developed as an input device capable of inputting information such as text, graphics, or the like.
The touch panel is mounted on the display surface of an image display device such as an electronic organizer, a flat panel display including a liquid crystal display (LCD), a plasma display panel (PDP), an electroluminescence (El) element or the like, or a cathode ray tube (CRT), so that a user selects the desired information while viewing the image display device.
The touch panel is classified into a resistive type touch panel, a capacitive type touch panel, an electromagnetic type touch panel, a surface acoustic wave (SAW) type touch panel, and an infrared type touch panel. These various types of touch panels are adapted for electronic products in consideration of signal amplification problems, resolution difference, level of difficulty of designing and processing technologies, optical characteristics, electrical characteristics, mechanical characteristics, environment-resistant characteristics, input characteristics, durability, and economic efficiency. Currently, a capacitive type touch panel and a digital resistive type touch panel have been used in a wide range of fields.
As one example of the touch panel, as described in the patent document, studies on the reduction in visibility for an electrode pattern have been continuously conducted.
However, in the touch panel of the prior art, as an electrode pattern, which is to be formed of a transparent conductor, is formed of an opaque metal material, it is necessary to improve visibility of the metal electrode pattern.
For achieving this, efforts to improve visibility of a metal electrode pattern are being made by, for example, performing blackening treatment on the electrode pattern or changing the design structure of an electrode pattern formed in a mesh pattern.
However, in the case where this metal material is used for the mesh pattern, there are process difficulties that a separate material for giving black color needs to be added or the blackening treatment needs to be further performed after forming the electrode pattern in order to miniaturize the line width of the metal electrode pattern and also perform blackening treatment on the mesh pattern.
In addition, even though the mesh pattern is blackened by the blackening treatment, visibility of the mesh pattern may not be improved.